Mavs owner Mark Cuban confirmed that Dallas will honor Derek Harper by raising his No. 12 jersey to the rafters. Per ESPN: “Cuban said no date has been planned for the ceremony. Harper was the team’s first-round pick in 1984 and played point guard for the Mavs for 12 seasons during two stints in Dallas. He holds the franchise career records for assists (5,111) and steals (1,551), and ranks fourth in team history in scoring with 12,597 points. Harper will join former teammates Rolando Blackman and Brad Davis as players whose numbers have been retired by the Mavs.”

]]>http://www.slamonline.com/nba/dallas-mavericks-to-retire-derek-harpers-jersey/feed/16The Best to Never Be an All-Starhttp://www.slamonline.com/nba/the-best-to-never-be-an-all-star/
http://www.slamonline.com/nba/the-best-to-never-be-an-all-star/#commentsMon, 08 Feb 2010 20:39:20 +0000http://www.slamonline.com/online/?p=61965

For certain active players yet to play in an All-Star Game, there is always a chance they’ll be selected in upcoming seasons (players like David Lee, Josh Smith, Chris Kaman, Andre Iguodala, Monta Ellis, Al Jefferson…). This is a story, however, about players who were unjustly left out for the duration of their career, and will never have the opportunity to play because they have long since retired.

We cannot rewrite history, but we can retroactively honor those players who deserved to be part of the spectacle that is the All-Star Game. Here’s my all-time list of the best retired players who never made an All-Star game appearance: Drazen Petrovic, Eddie Johnson (not to be confused with a player of the same name who was a two time All-Star for the Atlanta Hawks in the beginning of ’80s), Derek Harper, Byron Scott, Rod Strickland, Ron Harper, Cedric Maxwell, Purvis Short, Phil Ford, Orlando Woolridge, Sam Perkins, Toni Kukoc. Regarding active players most egregiously snubbed by All-Star selection throughout their professional careers, four names stand out to me: Marcus Camby, Andre Miller, Mike Bibby and Lamar Odom.

In considering all the aforementioned players, I have to mention first my countryman, the late Drazen Petrovic, who left us too soon at the age of 28. Drazen was particularly deserving of playing in the 1993 All-Star game, hosted in Salt Lake City. He was at the peak of his powers that season, averaging 23.4 ppg while also shooting 51.6 percent from the field and 49.6 percent from the three-point line (best in the League) at the time the All-Star reserves were announced. Petrovic was the only player not to be selected to the All-Star game amongst the NBA’s top 15 scorers in 1993. Why? Some strange circumstances conspired together. Firstly, though there are usually at least five guards on each team, in 1993, besides the two guards elected by the fans — Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas – the NBA coaches picked only two backups, namely Detroit’s Joe Dumars and Cleveland’s Mark Price. If the normal five guards had been picked, Petrovic likely would have made the team.

“I really thought I deserved to be on, the same way Derrick Coleman and Kenny Anderson had a good shot. I think a team like Cleveland, they have three guys on the team and New Jersey doesn’t have any, that is not correct,” said Petrovic to the New York Times. Later in the interview, when asked if New Jersey’s history of futility worked against the team’s candidates for the All-Star game, Petrovic said, “I think so. We’ve been losing for six years and people say, ‘Aww, who is that? The New Jersey Nets?’ Politics was a big key because Cleveland, we beat them twice this year. But that’s life.”

I continue to be perplexed that Cleveland — a team they had twice beaten at that point — ended up with three players on the All-Star team that year. At the moment when All-Star reserves were announced, Cleveland had 25 wins and 18 losses while the Nets’ record stood at 25 wins and 19 losses. Almost identical records, yet the Cavs had three players in the All-Star Game (Mark Price, Brad Daugherty and Larry Nance) and the Nets zero. That makes absolutely no sense. Sadly, 1993 would be Drazen’s last year in the NBA, just as he was maturing into a dynamic scorer. Indeed, at season’s end, Petrovic was recognized with 3rd Team All-NBA honors. Sadly, however, on June 7 1993 he was tragically killed in a car accident. He had just completed his fourth season in the NBA.

“I never in my life saw anyone who wanted to succeed in the NBA more than Drazen,” said current Celtics GM Danny Ainge, who was a teammate of Petrovic’s with the Portland Trail Blazers. That’s why Drazen’s omission from the 1993 All-Star was truly so difficult to take, because of all the hard work he had put in.

Beyond Nowitzki’s consistent position amongst the Western Conference’s All-Stars, it has remained difficult for Europeans striving for All-Star recognition. Vlade Divac played only one All-Star Game, fortunately chosen as a late sub by commissioner David Stern when Shaquille O’Neal backed out due to injury in 2001. Other European greats weren’t so lucky, particularly Arvydas Sabonis and Toni Kukoc, two of the best players in European basketball history. Unfortunately, age and injuries limited Lithuanian basketball icon Arvydas Sabonis once he joined the Portland Trail Blazers in ’95-96. If the NBA had been privileged enough to see the real Sabonis before the injuries, he would have made several All-Star appearances. Even with the knee injuries that sapped Sabonis of his bounce and mobility, he still had a solid NBA career. We can only imagine how his career would have diverged had Soviet authorities allowed him to play in the NBA before 1989 (and had he not opted to play in Spain for six seasons prior to joining the Blazers). Nevertheless, his legacy is on strong footing at home, where any Lithuanian basketball fan will say Sabonis is the best in their nation’s history despite Zydrunas Ilgauskas having two All-Star game appearances.

Toni Kukoc is another European very deserving of making at least one All-Star Game. Despite the Bulls incredible success in 1996, only Jordan and Pippen represented the team in the All-Star game. In comparison, the 2010 Celtics will have three players in Dallas this week, including Kevin Garnett, whose play this season clearly does not merit his place on the team. In fact, there have even been times when certain teams even had four All-Stars in the same year, including ’52-53 Boston Celtics (Don Barksdale, Ed Macauley, Bob Cousy, Bill Sharman), ’61-62 L.A. Lakers (Elgin Baylor, Frank Selvy, Jerry West, Rudy LaRusso), ’61-62 Boston Celtics (Tom Heinsohn, Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, Sam Jones), ’74-75 Boston Celtics (John Havlicek, Dave Cowens, Jo Jo White, Paul Silas), ’82-83 Philadelphia 76ers (Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Maurice Cheeks, Andrew Toney), ’97-98 L.A. Lakers (Kobe Bryant, Eddie Jones, Shaquille O’Neal, Nick Van Exel), and ’05-06 Detroit Pistons (Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton, Ben Wallace, Rasheed Wallace).

Hell, even the Bulls had three All-Stars in 1994, while Jordan was off chasing fly balls (Pippen, Horace Grant, BJ Armstrong). But when 1996 came around, despite the Bulls becoming the only team in NBA history to win over 70 games (72-10), only Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen played in the All-Star Game. Where’s Dennis Rodman and possibly Toni Kukoc? Though perhaps Kukoc was not quite up to All-Star standards in ’96, he definitely was during Pippen’s injury plagued ’98 season.

On the other end of the spectrum, I have to say Boston Celtics point guard KC Jones, who never made the All-Star team, certainly didn’t deserve his Hall of Fame selection. Jones won eight championships with the Celtics and he was a fantastic defender and leader. That said, if he never made an All-Star team, he didn’t deserve to be elected in the Hall of Fame. Furthermore, why should he be an All-Star if his career average is meager 7.4 points per game and 4.3 assists? His best season was ’65-66 when he averaged 8.6 points and 6.3 assists, and that was while playing in an era when the Celtics were averaging over 110 points a game, often even 120 points. Sorry, KC: no All-Star Game, no Hall of Fame.

Every year it seems the same old story repeats itself. There is always a worthy player who deserves to play but is not voted in by the fans or selected by the coaches. This year that is the case with Josh Smith of the Atlanta Hawks, David Lee of the New York Knicks and Chris Kaman of the Los Angeles Clippers. In today’s NBA, with 30 teams playing, there is simply more players deserving of an All-Star selection then there are places on the team. There will always be players with All-Star stats who don’t make the cut. Unfortunately, that’s become the norm in the NBA and no one pays attention to it.

COMPLETE ALL-STAR PLAYERS’ LIST BY TEAMS

Annotation: All-Star appearances from 1951 until 2010.Bold: Still playing for team
CAPITALIZED: Active player